"If that is true, my thoughts and prayers are with him," Griffin said. "Nobody deserves to go through something like that."

Chris Paul, who also said he hadn't heard about the cancer, called it "truly unfortunate," while coach Doc Rivers said he didn't know about it and that he hoped it wasn't true.

The league's advisory/finance committee held its first meeting about Sterling on Thursday. The 10-member committee said in a statement that it "unanimously agreed to move forward as expeditiously as possible" on the process of terminating Sterling's ownership and planned to reconvene next week.